Nicola Sturgeon elected as First Minister by Scottish Parliament

Nicola Sturgeon has been re-elected as First Minister after a vote in the Scottish Parliament.

Sturgeon won 63 votes versus five for Willie Rennie, with 59 MSPs choosing to abstain.

The First Minister, who will lead a minority government, promised to listen to ideas from across the chamber, telling MSPs “Politics at its best will always be a creative battle of ideas”.

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Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie stood against Sturgeon, but lost the vote after the other opposition MSPs abstained from voting.

Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh will now recommend Sturgeon is appointed First Minister by the Queen.

Speaking after the vote, Sturgeon said: “Of course we represent different political parties for a reason. Each of us wants what is best for Scotland, but we have different ideas about how to achieve it. We should not seek to mask these differences. Politics at its best will always be a creative battle of ideas.”

This will be the third consecutive SNP government.

Sturgeon said: “I will lead a government that seeks to win votes not simply by the force of our numbers but by the strength of our arguments, and by the support we are able to build for our policies in the country as a whole. When we make mistakes, as all governments do, though we will make strenuous efforts not to, we will try to have the courage and the humility to face up to them and put them right, and we will not assume a monopoly of wisdom. Good ideas exist across this chamber and I promise we will always seek to judge ideas by their merit and not by their party of origin.”